Several backup products exist in the market today. The nature of these products may vary, but their general purpose is to protect data. Some products may take snapshots of a volume and store the snapshot in a remote storage device.
Some products use a technique called deduplication. Deduplication typically involves identifying redundant data and removing the redundancy, resulting in potentially large storage savings.
Some products virtualize data, which eases the management of information technology resources. Virtualization typically involves creating a virtual version of computing resources, such as operating systems, storage devices, network resources, and processing resources, among others.
When implemented individually, such products provide much benefit to Information Technology (IT) managers. However, when IT managers desire multiple data protection technologies, such as deduplication and virtualization, such combinations are usually ad hoc and result in diminishing returns of investment. There is a need, therefore, for an improved method, article of manufacture, and apparatus for protecting data.